TENNESSEE: TBR chief urges legislative support for higher education (GIVES US MORE $$$)

BLOUNTVILLE - Facility needs, funding priorities and how the lottery will impact higher education were issues on the discussion menu during an informal closed-door power lunch Wednesday between Chancellor Charles Manning of the Tennessee Board of Regents and Northeast Tennessee legislators.

Inside a conference room at the Wayne G. Basler Library at Northeast State Technical Community College, Manning delivered a PowerPoint presentation on TBR trends and challenges while legislators listened, asked questions and munched on sandwiches.

The luncheon's host, NSTCC President William Locke, used the occasion to make a pitch for legislators to support funding a new $13 million humanities building at the college.

"We desperately need it on our campus. That's our major priority here," Locke said of the project after the luncheon, which was not open to the news media. "If we could get that, it would give us a facility to do art, music, dance, theater - all those types of things we don't have much room to do now."

Another major multimillion TBR project needing funding is renovating the old Sherrod Library at East Tennessee State University into a nursing department, legislators were told.

Manning, meanwhile, reminded legislators of their track record of not fully funding higher education over the past 12 years.

The result, he pointed out, is that tuition in the TBR system has increased 55.5 percent since 1995.

"The political reality - and this isn't just Tennessee, it's every state I've been in - that higher education is a little further down the food chain," Manning said in an interview after the luncheon. "You start talking about health care, K-12 and prisons. They tend to get funded before higher education does. We're concerned about that, and that's part of the message we wanted to bring that the long-term future of Tennessee really depends of having more people get more education."

Manning said he doesn't expect full funding for the TBR system out of the 2003 session of the General Assembly.

"We certainly hope for more investment, and we're certainly going to ask for full funding, but I don't anticipate that kind of change could be made in one year with all the competing forces out there," he added.

The TBR system is a $1.4 billion educational enterprise receiving between $500 million and $600 million annually from the legislature in recent years.

Manning stressed the TBR system - which now has more than 180,000 students statewide - will be impacted by an anticipated 20 percent increase in the number of high school graduates going to college by 2010.

"I think it is important for us to keep up a steady investment by the public so we can educate more people," he said. "I do think we will continue to have a lot of pressure on tuition."

Manning advised legislators the new Tennessee Lottery will also bring additional scholarship students - but not new revenue - into the TBR system.

"The one thing that concerns a lot of us is the fact that the lottery proceeds going into higher education won't actually mean more money going into higher education," said state Sen. Ron Ramsey, R-Blountville. "It could actually cost the state money, and we'll have to work through that."

In the meantime, Manning promised the TBR will continue to stretch the dollars it does receive by reducing the cost of earning a degree and eliminating under-performing academic programs.

Manning also showed legislators in his presentation that the rest of the nation continues to outpace Tennessee in important performance areas such as per capita income and the percentage of people who hold bachelor's degrees.

"We really believe we need to raise that to be able to be economically competitive with other states to attract jobs," Manning said.

Wednesday's luncheon at NSTCC was one of more than 15 similar informational meetings being held with legislators at community colleges across the state because of the "great number of new legislators" elected last month, said Manning. Those attending included state Reps. David Davis, Bob Patton, Steve Godsey and Jason Mumpower in addition to state Sens. Ramsey and Rusty Crowe.

These guys got a 2.5% pay raise from the State, then raised tuition 14% to give themselves a SECOND 2.5% pay raise. They spend Millions on renovating the entrances to the colleges..it's about MORE pay and MORE buildings not the students.

Gee they got a BILLION more in this last budget than they had the year before. Next year the GREEDY monsters want $1.5BILLION MORE.

Just wait until more kids than ever show up with the lottery financed scholarships. Then the schools will demand even more dollars for new buildings, professors, etc.

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